It is now confirmed that Microsoft has reversed its highly contentious Xbox One DRM policies, dropping the requirement for a 24-hour internet check-in and restrictions on used game trade-ins.

UPDATE: In a message that just went live on Xbox.com, Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business President Don Mattrick confirmed that the Xbox One will do away with internet check-ins and allow unlimited game trading, sharing and reselling. Region locks are out, and downloaded games will be playable even while offline, although they cannot be shared or resold.

"Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One," Mattrick said. "You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world."

"We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity," he continued. "While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds."

It's a huge change in direction, especially in light of Microsoft's apparently unshakeable commitment to a connected future just a week ago at E3. Further details and fine print will likely come into the picture over the coming weeks and months but for now, this is nothing short of a breathtaking turnaround.

Original Post: Microsoft got hammered badly at E3 for its restrictive Xbox One policies, which mandate a connection to the internet at least once every 24 hours and impose strict conditions on how you can share and trade your games. But now Giant Bomb has reported a strong rumor that it will drop most of those requirements in the face of massive and sustained blowback from fans.

If the rumor is true, Microsoft will do away with the always-online requirement, game discs will work as they do in the Xbox 360, downloaded games will function even if the system is offline, games will be fully tradeable and region locking will be eliminated. It's quite a turnaround after the company put so much effort into defending the console but there's no question that it was taking a hammering at the hands of Sony and the PlayStation 4.

It's just a rumor at this point and Microsoft has not yet commented. We'll update when we find out more.

If this is true then MS has time to try and recover from that god awful showcase really. I mean, they would still have a hard time since it's only launching in 21 countries, but this could be one less burden for them. Now what also needs to happen is for Don Mattrick, Major Nelson, and Yusuf Mehdi to shut up. While we are in this dreamland why don't we get rid of Steve Ballmer as well, and make the Kinect a peripheral again. XD

Yeah, as much as I would really love to continue being able to play the Halo franchise, since I've been with it from the beginning, the requirement for Kinect is just... It's too much. Remove that, and you remove $100 to $150 off the price tag, and I'm yours.

I'm not going to be buying a console this generation anyway, but if I was, it wouldn't be the Xbone. They already showed what they want to do, and there is nothing stopping them from reimplementing it later.

A multi-billion dollar international corporation has listened to what they call "a vocal minority" and then seriously considered doing something to address the complaints? Getdafuqout! The alarm's going to go off in a few minutes and I'm going to have to go to work, right? :D

I can't imagine EA et al are happy about this proposal. I guess we'll see who MS sides with in the end.

And can't see how it matters much at this point, seeing as all the XB1 pre-orders are sold out, yeah?

That tells us 2 things:1. It was never supposed to be good for the consumers2. Cloud processing was always a lie if all the games can work offline

And the fact still remains that they were praising those features as something that's going to be beneficial to us. And now they're removing the things that they advertized as attractive features that were supposed to give it the edge over the PS4. Which means that now we have two pretty similar consoles. Except that one is 50% more powerful and $100 cheaper. If they get rid of the mandatory Kinect and lower the price, then we can talk about competition. Because right now Sony is still in the lead. And most people have pretty much renounced Microsoft as the devil himself.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait a second, don't most announced games still use the cloud? Those games will still have to be online... I wonder if this is like their used game policy or whatever it was where they can pass the blame onto the devs.

OlasDAlmighty:But I thought all those were fundamentally necessary in order to make the console work properly. You're telling me Microsoft could (gasp) turn it off all along?

Well it's good to hear Microsoft (might) be listening to the gaming community and/or reason.

However, this does make all those arguments from Xbone supporters defending all these restrictions seem somewhat funny in retrospect.

You know, I may be cynical, but its possible, just possible, that they KNEW going in that these were terrible policies, never intending to keep them.

Setting themselves up for a masterstroke of going "We listen to our consumers, we are here for YOU, so all those things you railed against (And we knew you would -snicker-) are going away, because we love you, and are here to serve." gaining a good deal of popular support if they follow through.

this is a longshot but i pray to Gabe Newell that this is true. Hearing that Dead Rising 3 would be on Xbox One pissed me the hell off and this being true might convince me enough to get it. I'm not exactly holding my breath but i'm gonna hope they do.

If this turns out to be true then this shows that a lot of whining and shouting gets stuff done, like Jim Sterling said.

Thank you for at least getting the concept of what a 180 vs a 360 actually is. I remember towards the beginning of this generation, I kept seeing Sony fans saying things like "you know why its called a 360? Cause you see one and do a 360 and walk away." it made me wish I had a Facepunch key on my computer.

Even if this is all true I'm a bit confused. The #1 purpose behind always-on is to allow for used-license trade ins to retailers.

If the cloud no longer knows my library is current a retailer can't trust selling the game, as either I could still have the license (effectly pirating the game) or the new buyer wouldn't be able to play (license already consumed).

To avoid that they'd have to remove game licenses, which would destroy the ability to have the Xbone Steam-Like Library, their primary reason for doing all this crap in the first place.